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This book argues that the design of built spaces influences civic attitudes, including prospects for social equality and integration, in America. Key American architects and planners-including Frederick Law Olmsted, Frank Lloyd Wright, Robert Moses, and the New Urbanists-not only articulated unique visions of democracy in their extensive writings, but also instantiated those ideas in physical form. Using criteria such as the formation of social capital, support for human capabilities, and environmental sustainability, the book argues that the designs most closely associated with a communally-inflected version of democracy, such as Olmsted's public parks or various New Urbanist projects, create conditions more favorable to human flourishing and more consistent with a democratic society than those that are individualistic in their orientation, such as urban modernism or most suburban forms.
List of contents
1. American Democracy and Its Spaces: An Introduction.- 2. American Pastoral: Jefferson's Agrarian Republic.- 3. Democracy Gone Wild: Thoreau and the Wilderness Tradition.- 4. Olmsted's Public Parks: Civic-Spirited Design.- 5. Democracy and Individuality: Frank Lloyd Wright's Broadacres and the Burbs.- 6. Democratic Ambivalence: Robert Moses and Modernist Urban Planning.- 7. Democracy and Civic Ecology: New Urbanism.- 8. Democratic Designs: A Multipronged Approach.- 9. Conclusion.
About the author
Scott M. Roulier is the John Trimble Professor of Political Philosophy at Lyon College, USA
Summary
Introduces the unique democratic visions of Olmsted, Wright, Moses, and several new urbanists to a broader academic audience, to treat them as theorists of democracy in their own right
Blends together research in urban policy with environmental political theory by focusing on both landscapes and build spaces, i.e humans' relationship to nature and the environment
Includes chapters on specific architects, planners and design movements--information that is relevant not juts to political theorists and urban studies scholars but also to practitioners
